Should a self-proclaimed street preacher be banned from approaching students at a bus stop in Central Dauphin School District?
Dauphin County Judge Jeannine Turgeon is weighing that question regarding Stephen Garisto, who claims he has a constitutional free-speech right to evangelize to the kids.
Turgeon didn't make a final ruling after an hourlong hearing Thursday on a school district's plea for a permanent injunction to keep Garisto away from the children.
Yet she did tell Garisto that while his intentions might be pure, his actions eerily mimic those commonly associated with pedophiles and child abductors.
"Mr. Garisto, you're not Mr. Rogers," Turgeon said, invoking the ghost of the children's icon. "In our culture we tell children, 'Do not talk to strangers.'"
For the time being, she continued a temporary injunction requiring Garisto to stay away from the bus stop near his Boas Street home in Penbrook.
Garisto was in court because school district officials and parents are concerned about his interactions with the middle and high schoolers who board buses near his home.
The district moved the bus stop in response to parent concerns, but officials claim Garisto still approached children several times.
He is no stranger to the court.
In 2004, county Judge Scott A. Evans fined Garisto $50 after finding him guilty of disorderly conduct for protesting at the prior year's PrideFest, Harrisburg's annual gay and lesbian festival.
The first witness school district attorney Jeffrey Engle called in the bus stop case was Patricia Seaman, whose 13-year-old son uses the stop.
Seaman said her son told her he was frightened by Garisto. She and her husband became so worried that they stood at the stop for months to safeguard the 15 to 18 kids who use it.
She testified that when she confronted Garisto in November 2009, he yelled at her and said "he had a right to be there, he had freedom of speech to be there and that [the children] were his friends."
Once, she heard Garisto call a boy a "heathen," Seaman said. Another time, Garisto offered the children soup and began preaching loudly.
Bus driver Carol Mihailoff reported repeated incidents with Garisto, including one in October when he approached some girls as they got off the bus. She said she told them to hurry home. "My concern is that the children need to get home and be safe, because I have no idea what [Garisto] has up his sleeve," Mihailoff testified.
Garisto said his only intent is to preach God's word.
When he took the witness stand, he asked to be sworn in on a Bible. None was available in the courtroom, so he provided his own.
He denied yelling at Seaman but said he did defend his First Amendment rights. He said he once offered the kids hot chocolate and tea on a bitter cold winter day as an "act of kindness," but didn't force it on them.
He said he didn't recall calling any child a heathen and never tried to lure kids to his house.
Garisto said he did talk to the "Christian" kids at the stop and handed out religious tracts.
"Being a street preacher and evangelist ... that is something that is common for me to do," he said. "I have been ministering to children since the '80s."
Questioned by Engle, he said he gave tracts to "unsaved children" without asking their parents' permission. "My intention is to get them saved and to get them discipled," Garisto said.
Engle conceded Garisto has a right to preach publicly, but argued that a bus stop isn't an appropriate pulpit. "These are kids. They don't have the wherewithal to say to Mr. Garisto, 'I don't want a Bible tract,'" Engle said.
"What he have here is a man who wants to be a good neighbor," countered Garisto's lawyer, Henry Sollenberger. "He wants to share his faith with those around him.
"A group of hecklers is trying to veto his speech," Sollenberger said.
Turgeon told Garisto that "what you are doing is unacceptable in our culture," and that religious instruction in the purview of parents.
Garisto declined comment after the hearing. Sollenberger called him a "good man" who wants to defend his rights and his faith.
Seaman and Mihailoff applauded what Turgeon had to say.
"I don't disagree with [Garisto's] message. I disagree with the delivery and the forum for that delivery," Seaman said. "The children deserve to be at the bus stop without any interference."
"Yes, he has his rights," Mihailoff added. "But there's a time and place for everything."